Discovery in Area N
by SubZeroChimera
Summary: Grey and Ashe decide to explore a new area... what will happen when they find the secret it contains? Oneshot, stand-alone, partial crack-fic. Some bad language evident.


Wow, look what I found on my computer! I'd forgotten that I did this! For some reason, I told myself, "**FIC IS INCOMPLETE **-not posting it either." ...why the heck not? After finishing it up, I've decided to post it after all. It's a little sad near the end, I think, but all the same... It's not bad for a stand-alone oneshot, and quite frankly Omega needs some more love, he doesn't get nearly enough.

Rated K, but beware of some foul language.

Merry Christmas, guys!

* * *

><p>The sun rose.<p>

Grey, in his bed, awoke. He and Ashe, who was struggling with a jacket not far away, had decided to explore today.

"My, you're up early!" he yawned at her.

"Oh hurry up and get ready, I want to explore that door!" Ashe snapped.

Knowing that she was referring to the mysterious door they'd found while exploring old ruins in Area M, Grey caught her enthusiasm. He too wanted to see what was beyond those doors! Especially since, upon asking Vent and Aile earlier, they had gone still and pale as stone and told the two to run the other way.

As the rest of Hunter's Camp grudgingly dragged themselves out of bed, Grey and Ashe were already at the teleporter, harassing the poor receptionist there.

"Alright alright, fine! Transfer in three... two... one..."

_Brrrzzzrrrraat!_

After they'd arrived, Grey and Ashe shook themselves off as they stepped off the transporter . "Well, there it is!" Ashe grinned, motioning towards the door. "Let's get going, shall we?"

"Sure thing." Grey smiled back.

As the door opened and the two stepped into a hallway, they were on instant alert. Some minor enemies were stationed outside the door, a good sign to any explorer that something interesting was around. It didn't take them long to drop down deeper into the area, Area N if their map was at all accurate. Just a few minutes later, they found themselves in a surprisingly open area with absolutely bizarre landscaping. That wasn't the only thing strange about the area, however.

The two model A mega men looked up at the sky, frightened of what they saw.

It was horrid. A great black orb hung like a tear in the sky, black and open, slowly oozing smaller orbs congealing like blood in a wound.

Ashe quickly looked down, "Well, this is new."

"Very. I think it's breaking physics..."

"Hey Grey, do we want to ignore it?"

"Yes. Let's."

The pair continued exploring.

It wasn't long until they had encountered an obstacle involving disappearing platforms and a wall of spikes that only Queenbee could fly over. After flinching at the thought of what they'd have had to do without her form, they walked over to a ledge and climbed up (after defeating the nearby enemies, of course). When they they saw what was before them, they balked. There was a door a ways off into the distance. However, before that door...

Grey and Ashe looked at each other. Whatever was hidden behind the door had to be important. It had to be_ terrifying_. Nothing else in this place was anything less than freakish or scary. But this...

They looked back at the chasm before the door, a daunting pit of spines, slick with eerily glowing poison, as well as disappearing platforms appearing haphazardly, and then looked back at each other.

...was more than a little ridiculous.

No, if there were that many precautions in a place like_ this_, all for one little door, then they were probably in for it.

Ashe sighed, "Well, we didn't come this far for nothing. Let's go."

And thus, it was with a series of complicated maneuvers, skill, sheer luck and happy accidents that they crossed the pit. Finally at their destination, Grey looked back at the pit. "Let's never do that again if we can avoid it."

"Grey, we're in an underground, freaky, I don't know, _place_. Chances are that we're going to have to come back the way we came to get out."

Grey said a bad word.

"Couldn't have said it better myself," grinned Ashe.

They opened the door.

The two stepped in, peering around the space to see what was there. The door closed behind them as they saw the only interesting thing in the entire room. Of all the things they'd expected to see, a person was not one of them.

He was standing, giving them a curious look, before he pulled out a vicious looking sword and smiled entirely too widely.

"Ware wa messia nari! Ha ha ha ha!"

Grey said a _very_ bad word.

That's when the fight began. A very one-sided fight.

Ashe screamed in frustration as she ran for her life around the room, "Augh, are you CRAZY we haven't even DONE anything-!"

_Slash_

Grey shrieked, "Watch where you're aiming that you jerk!"

"What the hell does Ware wa messia nari mean anywaaaaaays!"

"It means 'I am the messia,'" quoted their attacker.

Ashe slid to a halt, leveling her gaze at the crazy psycopath behind her, "Wait, seriously? Messia as in 'God", right?"

"Yeah," he replied, kicking up a little dust as his feet screeched to a stand-still, "I 'm the God of Destruction, or so I've been called, so it seemed to fit as far as I was concerned."

Ashe crossed her arms, "Isn't that a little egotistical?"

"Are we still fighting or not?"

"Shut up Grey!"

"Give the kid a break, it's a legitimate concern."

Ashe rolled her eyes, "Okay, I'll give you that, but seriously, 'God of Destruction', of all names? What's up with that?"

"Well, duh, I _am_ Omega, the reploid supposed to bring about the end of the world. I mean, I didn't come up with the title myself, but it's the role I was supposed to fill, so I'm not complaining."

"Omega?" Grey asked.

"Yup."

"I'm Grey. This is Ashe! Nice to meet you!"

"You too."

"Grey, what have I told you about being nice to people trying to kill us?"

"He's not trying to kill us anymore though, right?"

"...Touche."

Omega looked over at the pair, confused, "Huh, my hallucinations normally aren't this polite..."

"Uhm, what?" Ashe stared.

"But we're not hallucinations," Grey whimpered.

Omega tutted, "That's what they all say. No, seriously, I know I'm talking to myself here, but honestly, how could anyone come down here? That spike pit's next to impossible to cross, and there's nothing here but death-traps. I have a feeling it's pretty remote too. I've been down here ages and no one has come, why would that change?"

"No, really, we're not hallucinations," Ashe shot.

Omega shook his head, "No, no, I must be hallucinating, just like the last dozen times. I tell you, I once thought I saw my old enemy Zero, only there were two of them! One of them even had boobs! If that's not hallucinating, I don't know what is!"

Grey and Ashe, glanced at each other warily as the reploid prattled on.

"It was kind of a fun hallucination actually. They fought pretty well. The two of them even managed to stale-mate me! I was getting tired though and stopped for a sec to take a break. What do you know, the two ran hell-for-leather out the door after that. Geeze, the least a couple of my _own_ hallucinations could do is stick around, but hell, I'm batshit insane, enough to scare off my own hallucinations anyways.

"Do you think he meant Vent and Aile?" Grey whispered to his friend.

Ashe grimaced, "If he did, I'm not going to mention it to him."

"Agreed."

"What'cha talking about over there?"

"Oh-oh, nothing!" Ashe quickly chirped. We were just, you know, being hallucinations. Actually, we wanted to know if you were okay, you know, hallucinating can't be a good thing at all..."

"Probably not. Hallucinating, duh."

"Right..." Ashe glanced to the side. "How freaking old are you, anyways?"

Omega frowned. "And that's relevant why?"

Grey piped up, "Well, old guys sometimes act like their brains are sorta missing, so-"

"I'm_ four-fucking-hundred years old_, gimme a break damnit! I have all rights to be a little off in the head! Stupid imagination, why the hell are you- wait, if you guys are a figment of my imagination, why would you need to ask how old I am?"

"Uh..."

"We were just testing you!"

"Yeah! What she said!"

Omega blinked, then nodded sagely, "Ah, yes, yes, that would make sense. Wait, nothing makes any sense. Am I speaking of sense in terms of relativity then? Maybe I am. So relatively speaking, what you said makes more sense than everything else which makes no sense at all. Sweet, that sounded smart! Boy, you do a lot of philosophizing when you go crazy!"

"You're nuttier than a fruitcake," Ashe said in disbelief.

"Of course I am! It's _fruit_ cake, it doesn't have nuts in it! Or maybe it does? I haven't eaten fruitcake before, maybe it does have nuts. Or are nuts optional?" he asked.

"I dunno. I ate one before that was harder than a rock, so I couldn't tell you if it had nuts in it or not. Put a few blokes in hospital too," Grey answered.

"Anyone die?"

"Nope."

"Aww nuts," Omega frowned, "because it would have been funny to have the cause of death be a fruitcake."

"A fruitcake with nuts?"

A fruit and nut cake!"

"A nutcake?""

"I don't know about you," Ashe piped up, "but you're starting to sound like a nut _case_."

Grey laughed heartily at the reply she got from their red friend, "I already am!"

"I know that!" She snapped. She turned to Grey, "but you're starting to sound like one too."

Grey blushed. "I dunno Ashe, if this is what being insane is like, it's kinda fun."

"Oh not you, too!" Ashe yelped, "We already had to deal with one insane psychopath trying to take over the world with a giant freakin' biometal, shaped like a snake eating it's own tail no less, and now we have another one here trying to philosophize on the nuttiness of fruitcake! I don't need my partner going crazy as well! Or I'll go crazy!" she yelled.

"You mean you aren't?"

"_Gaaah_!"

Ashe threw up her arms in defeat, turning around and stomping back to the entrance, "Screw this, I'm outta here! Just meet me on the other side of the spike pit when you're done talking with the god of doofuses here."

And with that, the door was opened and somehow slammed shut, despite it being an automated door.

"God of doofuses? Hmm, that's not a bad idea for an insult there."

"She's good with those."

"Ideas?"

"No, insults."

"Ah."

Grey sat down beside Omega, and the two observed each other for a bit. An idea was forming in the child's mind, but he let it slide for now. Soon after, Omega looked up at the bizarre sky.

"You know, I can't remember what the real sky looks like."

Grey stared, startled, "You can't remember... what! Seriously!"

Omega smiled sadly at the black orb in the horizon, "Nope, can't remember it. I lived in the real world for a good 200 years, but most of that time was spent in hibernation or in fights. I never once took the time to view a real sunset, or a sunrise, or just look at the sky and think, 'it's so beautiful, I should memorize this'. No, I just... I was a robot meant to do things. I did what I was told, I fulfilled my original programming as best as I could, if I had to work through another program that was in control at the time, aka Zero, or as I am now."

"You mean, you never really thought for yourself? You never did things for yourself?"

"Nope. I'm just a robot. I do what I'm made to do."

Grey sniffed, sorrow at the reploid's predicament filling him, "You never once did anything for yourself. You just... you just followed what your creator made you for? That makes you no better than a mechaniloid! A slave! You're a reploid! You're supposed to think for yourself!"

"I am?"

"Yes!"

Omega looked at Grey, honest tears starting to appear in the child reploid's eyes, "Stop that."

"Stop what?"

"Stop repeating things that I've already thought about."

Grey started, confused. "What do you mean?"

Omega smirked, "Oh don't give me that, you silly hallucination. You know that I've thought about that sort of thing over and over again. You know I regret not doing things for myself. But what can I say? That's what I did, and I didn't think better of it at the time. Besides, I killed millions, billions of people, directly or indirectly. Think about it. The man who created me included a virus on my systems, the maverick virus, and that caused a huge war with multiple uprisings. And then there was the elf war, which I took part in. And then in the whole shebang with Neo Arcadia and the Resistance, I didn't once object to being told to kill all those people. When I was told to ride the missile into the civilian sector, I didn't say, 'oh, but what about those poor, innocent bystanders?' I just did as I was ordered, and about ten thousand or so people went splat, kablooey. And you know what? It's still not a big frickin' deal! I don't care! All along, those billions of people died, and I could care less!

I deserved what I got for killing those people, for even existing, even if it was other people's whims that I served, even if it was some madmen's designs that made me. My greatest sin is just existing, and my second greatest sin is doing what I was told to do. I'm a weapon, and just because it was other people's mad desires that pointed me at innocents, I'm still the thing that killed them. Who cares about a weapon? You destroy something that's dangerous, and I'm grateful for just being alive. Who cares if I never see another real person again? No one else but me really knows I exist! No one thinks twice about some relic they don't know about! One of these days, my dual power cores are just gonna quit. I can live a long time, but I can't live forever, after all.

And you know what? No one is going to care, not even me. After all, you can't care about a dead person if you are the dead person! One more lone, rusting cadaver won't change the world. Hell, I may even be the only one left alive, I have no idea what Weil did after I went kaput! The surface world, the real world, could be no more for all I know! Dead men tell no tales. Insane ones tell no one but themselves."

Omega's vision returned to the sky, ignoring the aghast face of the gray-haired boy.

"But, you know? This sky ain't so bad. It's mine, and mine alone. No one else has seen it, right? It's probably the only thing left to me except my sword and my life. I can't touch it, but I can see it. Even if it's just another figment of my imagination... no, it can't be. Even my mind couldn't come up with something like that.

It's not bad at all. Just look at it. It's beautiful."

Too stunned by the earlier revelation, Grey could do nothing but what he was told.

It was horrid. A great black orb hung like a tear in the sky, black and open, slowly oozing smaller orbs congealing like blood in a wound.

Grey continued to stare, and unbeknownst to him, Ashe, on the other side of the sea of spines, was doing the exact same thing.

As the smaller drips slowly drifted away from the gentle glow of the orb, they began to dance slightly at the outer reaches of the sky. Floating like will-o-the-wisps in a breeze, they appeared to quietly fall to the teal earth below, never quite touching. Hexagonal plates, which had separated from the ground, created intricate patterns in the sky like panzer plated armor guarding the air. They shone with glittering reflections created by the broken sky, crystalline with unearthly beauty.

"It really isn't bad at all..."

Omega smiled, a simple, authentic gesture, "I know, right?"

He looked at the sky again, serene in it's own bizarre way. "I may have missed out on remembering the real sky, but... I've still got this one. And it's unlike any sky anywhere else. It's unholy, but it's... unique. It's mine. It's my own to look at, and to say, truly, that I'll never forget it. No one else will ever see this, only me... so, you know... it would be an insult not to enjoy it."

He picked up a dark green pebble from the ground, holding it up to the light. It sparkled beautifully.

"There's something to be said from all the time I've spent here. I've learned to enjoy life instead of just taking it away from others. I don't have much any more, but, what I do have, I enjoy! Even if I hate it... it's something. This sadness at being alone, the rage I used to have at everyone for being locked up here... It's something. It's not nothing. I have what I have, and I enjoy things for what they are."

Grey glanced at him, a thought beginning to surface, "So... when you think about it, all those lives you took away... they could all have felt things like this. They could all have enjoyed life in their own way. Don't you feel sorry about that?"

Omega's eyes widened at the revelation, "Other... people? Well, when you put it like that... Yes... yes, maybe I do regret it a little. I don't regret killing humans. I don't regret spreading their guts all across the ground. But I do regret having cut short so many people's chances at enjoying life. The majority of them... I doubt any one of them would learn to enjoy it like I have. And I could care less about killing those sacks of mindless flesh. But the thought that, even one of them, may have eventually come to the same realization that I have... I don't regret killing any humans or reploids, I only regret having, perhaps, killed a person."

"That doesn't make sense."

"Yes it does. Heh heh, relatively speaking," he grinned, "look at it this way. A lot of people just focus on getting through their day alive. They don't care about why they want to live, they just live. They don't think about other things than everyday trivialities. Who is banging who, who's fighting which person, where their money is coming from, etc. So few humans actually use their advanced brain for thinking, they just use them for doing. It's only ever _here_ and _now_ for them. It's all about them, it's all about survival, what happened and what is happening. Few people think about the future, they don't think about life.

What kind of people do you know that will just go out, sit on a rock in a patch of sunlight, and know in their hearts that this is life? That this is enjoyable?

How many people live life to enjoy it, how many are happy with what they've got, instead of just living life to have life? To just have something? That's greed. That's wanting something, and perhaps wanting more, instead of just liking what you've got. Humans are just another social animal trying to out-compete other lifeforms. Very few of them can really be called true people."

Grey frowned, "And how do you know that? You're just stuck here all by yourself!"

Omega scratched the back of his head and sighed. "You know what? I guess I don't. But what I wouldn't give for the chance to find out."

Grey looked away, lost in thought. The idea from earlier had fully blossomed, and he couldn't shake it. "What if you could have a second chance? What would you do?"

Omega snorted, "I don't know. I could wander the world, maybe, see what it's like. Meet some people among the humans too, if I'm lucky. But why am I telling you this? You already know that, hallucination."

"Hee hee, maybe I am just your hallucination," Grey laughed, "but, you want to see just how far you can hallucinate with me?"

"Worth a shot. What do you want to do, oh figment of my imagination?"

Grey stood up, beckoning Omega to follow him to the door. He opened it as the god of destruction followed, smiling with his plot. A quick transformation later and Vulturon was stood on one side of the spike pit.

"Hey Ashe, we're coming over!"

Ashe, waaaay over on the other side, responded, "What? You're bringing him over? Oh screw it, whatever, I'll help you across! This day can't get any weirder, so why not?"

Another Vulturon appeared, then flew to a quarter of the way across. Grabbing the ceiling, she prepared for when the others would arrive.

"This looks fun," Omega chirped.

After another series of complicated maneuvers, skill, sheer luck and happy accidents very similar to the first one used to cross the pit, the trio was on the other side. Omega took stock of the landscape as they traveled back to the transporter in Area M, and was a little surprised when they reached the section that looked like a building.

"This is new!"

"That's what we said when we got to your spot, now come on!" Ashe grunted.

Despite having to half-drag Omega away from the slightly new scenery, they managed to get into the teleporter. Grey turned to Ashe, "Hey Ashe, what time is it?"

"About 8:30, why?"

"You want to go watch a sunset?"

"...Seriously?"

"Yeah. When's the last time you watched one?"

"...You know, you've got a point."

"Let's make it one to remember!"

Grey picked Hunter's camp as the location, and they were there in less than half a minute.

Omega was shocked. The change in scenery was too much for him, and he dropped to the ground. Grey peered down at him.

"Are you okay?"

"My hallucinations have never been like this before... Is this what the world looked like? I thought I couldn't remember anything!"

"Yup, this is the world, our home too! Now hurry, we're gonna miss the sunset!"

Transforming into Bifrost, Grey picked up Omega by perching him on the end of his nose. The group walked a short way into the area until they could see the skyline vanishing into the distance. After climbing a building, the full view was revealed. A waterfall pounded elegantly into a river which traveled, winding, into the faraway sea. Trees and buildings were scattered near and far, and even a desert was visible in the distance. Hunter's camp, located right between a huge variety of areas, was the perfect place to view the scenery during a sunset.

Grey put Omega down gently near the building's edge. Still limp in amazement, he didn't fuss at all as Grey stuck him in a sitting position. Ashe gave Grey a curious look. After he explained their earlier conversation, Ashe finally understood.

The sun was just beginning to set, golden and mighty. Red, purple, and orange decorated the horizon like a complex oil painting, with blue and pink accents weaving intricate, cloudy patterns. Slowly the landscape faded into black silhouettes, and the colours became more brilliant, vivid in their glory.

An hour later, the sun was nothing but a sliver in the distance, barely lighting the darkening sky.

"You know, that was pretty cool." Ashe smiled.

Grey turned to her, smirking.

"So... is this what I was waiting for?"

The Model A mega men turned, surprised as Omega continued, "Two hundred years... is this what I've been waiting for, waiting to see for two hundred years? Not my old master, not my own death, but a single sunset?"

Grey spoke softly, "You know... you aren't hallucinating."

"I... know? I know? I'm not hallucinating. I'm not!" He smiled, a great, huge grin of sheer relief and joy, "I'm not hallucinating! This is all real! I'm free, I'm free!"

And suddenly, he was quiet. He turned to the sky, away from them, and became silent. He slumped down, apparently staring at the last breath of the day.

His body relaxed, as if he'd fallen asleep right then and there.

"Hey... Omega?"

Back in his childish form, Grey poked Omega, confused.

"Omega? Omega? Are you okay? Omega?"

And, for some reason, he received no response. Perhaps it was sleep, fallen upon the aged shoulders of an ancient reploid. Or perhaps, it was something else entirely. Omega sat, not responding to Grey's prodding, facing the sun as if both mind and body were enraptured by the final act of day.

The sun had set.


End file.
